with Galway<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Saturday rumour that Cian Lynch would be replaced by English turned out to be true, even though the Patrickswell man led out the team and showed no sign of an injury in the warm-up.<\/p>\n
For Clare, John Conlon was a late replacement for Shane Meehan and he operated as a sitting midfielder in front of Diarmuid Ryan who at times appeared like a spare defender.<\/p>\n
In suffocating conditions, the opening exchanges were iffy and the teams were level on two occasions before Clare moved away with three points without response. Ryan Taylor, Cathal Malone and Kelly, occupying a free role from the inside line, were the scorers.<\/p>\n
Lohan was in the right place to deny English a goal chance in the 17th minute and when Shane O\u2019Donnell finished off a score seconds later the Clare roar was heard in full effect.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor\u2019s frees provided relief for Limerick in the first half and his third free of the game was followed by Kyle Hayes\u2019s first to narrow the gap to two points.<\/p>\n
Hayes was then fouled Lohan having lost the ball and the exchange was indicative of the trouble Limerick\u2019s half-back line was experiencing. Clare\u2019s puck-out was causing them difficult as they found themselves crowded out and the likes of Kelly were picking up the scraps.<\/p>\n
Two O\u2019Connor frees were Limerick\u2019s only scores between the 24th and first minute of additional time as Clare piled on the points. Duggan\u2019s 30th minute point was an immense score and Kelly\u2019s fourth was backed up by two Rodgers\u2019 frees to send Clare seven ahead.<\/p>\n
English and Cathal O\u2019Neill send over much-needed scores prior to the interval. Five was a considerable difference. It wasn\u2019t enough for a Clare side who have a lot of reasons to be indignant in defeat.<\/p>\n
\n Scorers for Limerick: A. O\u2019Connor (1-9, 0-8 frees); D. Byrnes (0-3, 2 frees); C. O\u2019Neill, P. Casey (0-2 each); S. O\u2019Brien, A. Gillane, K. Hayes, B. Nash, A. English (0-1 each).<\/p>\n
\n Scorers for Clare: T. Kelly (1-5, 1-0 pen); M. Rodgers (0-7, 6 frees); P. Duggan (0-3); R. Taylor (0-2); C. Malone, S. O\u2019Donnell (0-1 each).<\/p>\n
\n LIMERICK: N. Quaid; S. Finn, D. Morrissey, B. Nash; D. Byrnes, W. O\u2019Donoghue (c), K. Hayes; A. English, D. O\u2019Donovan; G. Hegarty, C. O\u2019Neill, A. O\u2019Connor; P. Casey, A. Gillane, S. O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
Subs for Limerick: T. Morrissey for G. Hegarty (temp, 34-36); D. Reidy for D. O\u2019Donovan (48); T. Morrissey for A. Gillane (52); C. Lynch for C. O\u2019Neill (57); M. Casey for D. Morrissey (63); F. Fitzgerald for P. Casey (70+5).<\/p>\n
\n CLARE: E. Quilligan; D. Lohan, D. McInerney, A. Hogan; N. O\u2019Farrell, D. Ryan, C. Cleary; J. Conlon, R. Taylor; C. Malone, P. Duggan, S. Rynne; T. Kelly (c), S. O\u2019Donnell, M. Rodgers.<\/p>\n
Subs for Clare: C. Galvin for C. Cleary (46); D. Stritch for J. Conlon (48); I. Galvin for M. Rodgers (62); D. Fitzgerald for S. Rynne (63); D. Reidy for D. Stritch (inj 69).<\/p>\n
\n Referee: T. Walsh (Waterford).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clare may only have scored 1-3 in the second half, all but one point from placed balls, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[177329,30041,61,60,17406,43],"class_list":["post-534706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-championship-2026","tag-clare-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick-gaa","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}